Book of Delights Project

Rotherham Museums Galleries & Heritage and Archives & Local Studies Services have recently secured for public ownership an extremely rare book of patterns used in the Painting and Gilding Rooms at the Swinton (Rockingham) Pottery between c.1825 and the 1830s.

We are grateful to HLF for funding the purchase and associated work, with some matched funding from our own small purchase budgets and from our Friends organisations.

Rockingham Pattern Book

During the 1820s/1830s, Rockingham was one of the most highly regarded manufacturers of porcelain, and our museum collection of Rockingham is the pre-eminent collection in the UK; it includes at least 164 pieces to patterns included in the book.

Ours is the only Rockingham pattern book in the public domain, and was secured at auction in June 2007. Its 386, well-thumbed pages feature hand-painted designs for tea and dessert wares. No records have survived directly of the Rockingham business, although Rotherham's archival collections contain a single apprenticeship indenture dating from 1816 - the only direct piece of documentary evidence for life at the Works in the Borough. The Book is the only item that provides any insight into the workers and production processes at the Works.

We plan to work across Cultural Services (Archives, Museum, Library, Theatre, and Arts) to promote the availability of the Book to all and to undertake a programme of learning activities based on its content.

Project Progress

Now: A CD of images of every page of the book is now available for the public to view in the Archives and Local Studies Searchroom in Rotherham Central Library.

Nov 2007: The volume was fully digitised.

Jul-Oct 2007: The volume was taken to Sheffield Conservation Unit where it was cleaned and disbound; tears and weak areas in the paper were then secured before rebinding.

This is an image of conservation work in progress on the Rockingham Pattern Book

Images reproduced courtesy of Sheffield Conservation Unit

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Jun 2007: The Rockingham Pattern Book was secured at auction. It was then taken to Sheffield Conservation Unit for conservation work.

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